Scraping together enough coin to win the annual luncheon auction with Warren Buffett is probably beyond most investors' means. With the proceeds going to charity, this year's winning bidder forked over $2.63 million for the privilege.
Feast or famine
While we likely can't afford to break bread with the greats, we can peek at their stock ideas through their SEC filings. Here, we'll pore over some of the top investors' reports to see which stocks they've chosen as their best investments. We'll then check in with Motley Fool CAPS members to learn whether they agree.
First, a few caveats
- There's a delay between when the stocks were bought and when these investors filed their paperwork, so they might have sold out since.
- These legends may be hot investors now, but that can change in an instant. Bill Miller was a wunderkind after beating the market 15 years in a row. Then he went cold for three. He came back in 2009; we don't know what 2010 will bring.
Contrary to popular opinion
So, do further research, but in the meantime, let's take a look again at Richard Cunniff of Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb, the money management firm founded by the late William Cunniff, a Benjamin Graham-style value investor. We looked at his trades this past May, so let's see where he has gone since then.
Fund: Sequoia Fund
Number of Stocks Owned: 152
Top 5 Holdings: Berkshire Hathaway, Valeant Pharmaceuticals
Top Sectors: Consumer services, financials, health care
Like a number of the investing legends we've looked at, Cunniff has a fairly diversified portfolio, but his latest quarterly report showed he added 19 new positions. He took larger positions in health-care companies this time and significantly boosted his holdings of Valeant, increasing his stake by 215%. Let's take a closer look at some of them to see what CAPS members have to say.
Stock |
Average Price |
Current Price |
% Change |
CAPS Rating |
---|---|---|---|---|
DuPont |
$40.64 |
$49.77 |
22.5% |
**** |
Genzyme |
$65.38 |
$71.18 |
8.9% |
*** |
Medco Health Solutions |
$49.10 |
$61.37 |
25.0% |
**** |
Source: GuruFocus and Motley Fool CAPS.
Price is what you pay
The third-largest U.S. chemical maker by sales behind Dow Chemical
Analysts are overlooking DuPont's commitment to supporting "megatrends" in areas like agricultural productivity, alternative fuels, and energy-efficient materials. CAPS All-Star TMFDeej thinks government subsidies in areas like ethanol production will keep DuPont growing:
I'm a little late to the party on this one, but I still think that Dupont has room to run. The price of corn is going to the moon now that the idiotic government is likely to extend the ethanol subsidy. 40% of our darn corn crop now goes toward ethanol.
Tuning in to growth
Biotech Genzyme is still spurning sanofi-aventis' advances, even after the pharmaceutical extended its $18.5 billion offer, which works out to about $69 a share. Genzyme says Sanofi is trying to buy the biotech on the cheap, and with the stock trading north of that value, it seems investors are confident there may be a higher offer coming.
It's tough to play arbitrageur in these situations, because Sanofi could always pull the offer or there could be some other unforeseen circumstance. But management sounds committed to keeping the dialogue going, and 95% of the CAPS members rating the biotech think it will outperform regardless.
Dig, baby, dig!
Pharmacy benefit managers like Medco Health Solutions, CVS Caremark
Yet Medco is the biggest mail-order pharmacy operation, and one of the best at keeping costs low, so the favorable trends directly confronting the players should benefit it most.
More than 1,100 CAPS members have weighed in on Medco's prospects, with 97% picking it to outperform. You can add your own opinion about how demographic trends will help it on the Medco Health Solutions CAPS page.
Value is what you get
Become an investing legend yourself by starting your own research on these stocks on Motley Fool CAPS. Read a company's financial reports, scrutinize key data and charts, and examine the comments your fellow investors have made, all from a stock's CAPS page.
Sign up today for the completely free service, and tell us whether these stocks are as good a value as these investing legends think they are.